Attempts by the regime to more tightly control assistance to people affected by the recent earthquake have had a chilling effect on volunteer aid efforts in Myanmar’s second largest city.
By FRONTIER
The March 28 earthquake pushed U Soe Lu and his family onto the baking hot streets of Mandalay. Their home too damaged to live in, they moved into one of the 19 permanent pavilions alongside the city’s palace moat, built during King Mindon’s reign in the 19th century.
The sturdy but open-sided shelters, which line the north side of 12th Street, host nearly 900 people displaced by the disaster. Like Soe Lu and his wife, 18-year-old son and 12-year-old daughter, they’re all residents of Aung Myay Thar Zan Township wards in central Mandalay that sustained heavy damage from the quake.
Soe Lu, who provided Frontier with a pseudonym to protect his identity, said that in the absence of adequate help from the military regime, the hundreds of people staying at the pavilions have been relying on donations from volunteer aid groups, especially for food supplies.
He said their lives during the first week after the quake were “more comfortable” than they could have hoped because so many donors provided food, personal items and mosquito nets.
During those early days, the junta allowed relief and rescue teams to operate freely and without restrictions, Soe Lu said.
However, on April 5, the regime’s second-in-command Vice Senior General Soe Win announced during a meeting in Nay Pyi Taw that, from now on, both rescue teams trying to free people from ruined buildings and aid teams providing food, water and other necessities would need to obtain permission from the regime before operating in earthquake-affected areas.
The effect of Soe Win’s announcement was immediate. By the next day, ward administrators from across Aung Myay Thar Zan Township had set up signs and tables in front of the pavilions. Although they were not asking to see permission papers, donors were required to check in with them first and provide personal information before being allowed to hand goods directly to the earthquake victims.
“Before that, people were able to give donations to us freely. But fewer people have been coming to donate since the announcement. Only two donors came today” compared to more than 10 each day before April 5, Soe Lu, 45, told Frontier on April 7.
“If people don’t donate, we’ll have nothing to eat in the long run. Our house is on the verge of collapsing, so we can’t go back. We’re no longer comfortable living in the pavilion because we have to sleep on the floor and in the open air, and we’re exposed to the rain. We’ll be in trouble if aid teams don’t come.”
Mandalay was pummelled by brief but intense rain showers on April 5 and 6. With the monsoon season arriving next month, it will become increasingly important for displaced residents to find more substantial shelter from the elements.
On April 7, Frontier observed several officials sitting in front of the pavilions at tables under red signboards printed with the names of various wards. There were also about 20 men in the vicinity armed with police-style batons and wearing blue shirts printed with Pa Tha La Pha, an acronym for the volunteer People’s Security Teams formed by the junta to police urban neighbourhoods. Keeping a watchful eye on the scene were also several pro-junta Pyusawhti militia holding guns and wearing army uniforms.
Soe Lu said that the men wearing blue shirts claimed to be providing security for the displaced residents living in the shelters, but instead they were “managing” how donations were distributed in a way that made donors feel like the junta was interfering with the process rather than helping.
Frontier identified no cases of these men actively blocking aid, but their presence and the new requirements was clearly having a chilling effect in an environment of deep distrust and fear of junta authorities, who have a long record of obstructing and persecuting aid groups. Meanwhile, demands for permission from local authorities have been hobbling aid groups before they even reach families in need.
Many of the donors and volunteers who came to quake-hit areas of Mandalay, Sagaing and Nay Pyi Taw to help travelled from Yangon and other parts of lower Myanmar, which experienced minimal impact from the disaster. However, after the junta imposed new requirements on April 5, new arrivals slowed to a trickle, and some groups that had already been working in the disaster areas returned home.
One would-be volunteer told Frontier that he didn’t even make it to Mandalay before giving up. He said his group was stopped by ward officials in Yangon’s Mayangone Township while they were trying to raise money for earthquake victims on April 7. They were told that, to receive donations, they had to get permission from multiple authorities, including the ward administration office, township administration office, township municipal committee and township police office.
“The officials at the ward office said they would write a permission letter for us, which we could use to get permission from the other offices,” he told Frontier on April 8. “But we decided to stop working. We didn’t want our names recorded on their lists because we didn’t know what they would do with the information in the future. We also thought it would have been a long process for us to get all the permissions.”
In the first week after the earthquake, Frontier observed many groups in Yangon actively fundraising or seeking donations at busy areas like bus stations and Hledan Junction in Kamaryut Township.
However, most of those efforts had ended by the second week after the quake, mostly because potential donors were scared off by the junta’s new requirements. Meanwhile, some of the groups that spent the first few days after the quake raising funds faced problems when they finally made it to disaster sites.
Ma Noe Noe, who asked that her real name not be used, was part of a 30-member group from Yangon that visited the general hospital in the town of Kyaukse, about 50 kilometres south of Mandalay, on April 6 to donate K4 million (US$909 at the market rate) worth of medical supplies.
But when the group arrived, soldiers at the gate of the hospital compound stopped them from entering and asked to see their permission letters.
“We asked why we couldn’t donate to the patients in the hospital, and they said it was because we didn’t have permission,” Noe Noe said. “Even the hospital officials who would normally take donations said they couldn’t accept them. It doesn’t make any sense.”
As her group was preparing to leave, they were approached by a staff member from the hospital who said he would take the donations and distribute them to patients in need. Seeing no other option, they left the supplies with him, but were unsure whether they would actually be delivered.
“We were made to feel like we were delivering illegal goods to the hospital,” Noe Noe said.
Similar scenes were repeated at other hospitals.
A donor from Zabuthiri Township in Nay Pyi Taw said he tried to deliver donations to a 100-bed temporary hospital, consisting of prefabricated shelters and mobile healthcare units, in nearby Pyinmana Township but was not allowed to enter. However, unlike the Kyaukse incident, he was told he could give donations but would have to leave them at the gate, instead of handing them to hospital staff or patients. Frontier saw five soldiers guarding the entrance to the hospital, as well as police patrolling inside the compound.
It’s not only volunteer aid teams that have faced restrictions, but also rescue teams trying to save people or retrieve bodies from the ruins of collapsed buildings.
A member of a rescue team from Yangon that arrived in Mandalay before April 5 told Frontier that in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake they had no problems entering the city. The general lack of restrictions allowed hundreds of lives to be saved during the crucial 72-hour window for rescuing people trapped by earthquake debris.
However, after Soe Win’s April 5 announcement, checkpoints were set up outside the city. New volunteer teams who wanted to help recover bodies from the rubble were not allowed through if they were unable to show permission letters.
“Just after the earthquake, the rescue teams that came to Mandalay simply informed township officials of their arrival. The officials would tell us which site we should help at, and we would go to that site and work,” he said.
“But now they aren’t allowing new groups to come into the city to help [without prior authorisation]. I heard that if teams want to help in Mandalay, they have to submit a letter to the district-level national disaster management committee first, and then they will give the team permission.”
He said he’d heard about many rescue teams being turned away by regime authorities at checkpoints for lacking official permission. Frontier could not confirm these particular accounts but spoke with a team that travelled to Mandalay from southern Shan State with a backhoe that was prevented from entering the city by regime authorities on April 5.
“The officials stopped us on the outskirts of Mandalay and asked where we were going. We said we wanted to help demolish some of the damaged buildings in the city. They asked if we had permission from the government, and since we didn’t they made us turn back,” a member of the group said, adding that before then they hadn’t heard anything about needing to apply for permission ahead of time.
While travelling around Nay Pyi Taw on April 8, Frontier saw only one rescue team at work, trying to recover dead bodies from the debris. In Mandalay, there are now far fewer teams than last week, and most of them are volunteers from the city.
Noe Noe said her group had originally decided to help the earthquake victims because Myanmar lacked a government capable of providing adequate humanitarian aid. However, the junta’s poor management of aid and rescue operations has made her want to quit doing volunteer work.
“In our country, it’s up to the people to help each other because we can’t count on the regime. But now I’m disappointed by the way the junta is controlling aid and rescue groups. If they can’t help the people, they should at least leave us alone and let us help,” she said.
